I was in my kitchen Friday night during the first part of the bottom of the ninth between the Twins and Yankees.

But as I walked back over to the family room and saw the score was suddenly 3-3 with no outs instead of 3-1, and as I hit the rewind button on my remote, and as I saw it was Alex Rodriguez backwards circling the bases as he hit a two-run blast to tie the game off Joe Nathan, I couldn’t help but act like a blithering, loud idiot in celebration.

It only would have been better if it was a three-run homer to win the game.

A-Rod’s numbers for the three-game sweep? He was 5-for-11 with two homers and six RBI. And as Ken Tremendous pointed out this morning, A-Rod’s OPS is higher than Derek Jeter’s for their playoff careers (.900 to .858 — both pretty darn good) and A-Rod is now hitting .291 in the playoffs.

If he struggles from here on out, I suppose the haters will be justified in saying it was just the ALDS against a team they definitely should have beaten. But if he doesn’t, and he continues to shine, it will be the last hurdle in his career: a terrific performance in the playoffs, capped off by a World Series title and possibly MVP.

Hate on the the guy’s image or persona all you want, but it’s getting harder to justify A-Rod can’t get it done in the playoffs.

Last evening, during the Yankees’ 7-2 win over the Twins, Alex Rodriguez hit a single which drove in a run, breaking a streak in which he failed to drive in a run with men on base in 27 straight playoff plate appearances.

Those that want to hate on A-Rod’s playoff woes are not without merit, as that above state tells a woeful tale. Yet, these same people also casually forget the times in which he played well in the playoffs: the 2000 ALCS against the Yankees, the 2004 ALDS against the Twins, and then the first three games leading up to the Yankees’ epic collapse in the 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox. But yeah, from there, it hasn’t been too pretty.

So I’m glad A-Rod got off the snide early in the playoffs last night. I always find myself rooting for this guy, no matter what the circumstance. He just sort of seems like a lost puppy sometimes, never really fitting in or finding his way in the clubhouse, and he’s constantly being hated on by fans and media. (Though, I admit, sometimes it’s pretty easy to find ways to rip on the dude.)

But, bottom line: he’s a hell of a ball player. And if the Yankees keep going on this terrific season, and end up winning the World Series, I hope A-Rod is a large part of it.

So the Twins won last night’s garbagefest to become champions of the worst division of all time, which is probably good in some way for all those Kent Hrbek jersey-wearing 10,000 Lakers with their Minnesota Nice getting circled by Bert and all. But while some a few maybe two or three of us sat there last night thinking “Man, that should be the Sox playing for the right to get murdered by the Yankees,” another idea appeared to me like some kind of dream blooper past the flailing arms of Placido Polanco: the Twins did us all a huge favor because now, in a way, the ALDS ends in moral victory for the South Side faithful no matter what happens. Consider the outcomes:

Scenario A: Yankees crush the Twins. Easily the most logical and most likely, and watching someone humiliate the Twins on the national stage is as solid a form of sports-watching entertainment as I’ve ever heard of.

Scenario B: Yankees beat the Twins, but only in a conventional and competitive fashion, possibly involving getting more cheap bounces or fly balls caught in a jetstream caused by an air conditioner the Metrodome crew forgot to turn down when the Yankees came up to bat. Again, the Twins lose, with the added bonus of the Yankees suddenly weakened for the ALCS.

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Jon covered last night’s game in detail a little earlier this morning, but there’s one thing I’d like to point out that he didn’t: the Twins beat the numbers.

The last two months, I’ve been a slave to playoff odds. I knew the White Sox still had the Tigers for six games late in the season, but if they only had a two percent chance of making the playoffs leading up to those games, I had zero faith they had any chance. And even though the Cubs were somewhat close in the Wild Card hunt, Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds were equally low for the Cubs. It was going to take a miracle for them to weasel their way in.

And the Twins? Down three games with four to go, NO TEAM IN HISTORY has ever made the playoffs with those odds stacked against them. They had a five percent chance of making the postseason at that point. But with a little help from the White Sox, and them ripping off four straight wins, they found themselves in a one-game playoff at the Metrodome, and of course — of course — they won in dramatic, extra-inning fashion last evening.

I counted the Twins out before this weekend. I did. I’ll admit it. But, you know what? I’m glad I was wrong. Because sometimes you need to throw away numbers, throw away odds and probability. Sometimes you just have to watch the game of baseball and see what happens.

It has a funny way of proving us all wrong.

1. The Twins, as you may know, are the only team in major league history to play a one-game playoff for two years in a row. As such, they’ve played 326 regular-season games over the past two years. This is an all-time world record in the history of professional sports.

2. Peter Gammons said on “Baseball Tonight” that the greatest games are often flawed. Well, last night’s game was pretty damned great, and it was pretty damned flawed. Tigers left fielder Ryan Raburn made the ill-advised decision to slide after a Michael Cuddyer line drive and missed it, costing his team the lead in extra innings. The Twins’ Alexi Casilla, who represented the winning run at third base in the bottom of the tenth, managed to flub the tag-up process and was called out at the plate. And Jim Leyland elected to trot out closer Fernando Rodney for three consecutive innings; predictably, he gave up the winning run.

3. Speaking of Leyland, I’m already hearing people say they “feel bad for Leyland.” Why? Dude has been to the World Series twice, having won one of them. True, he’s 65 years old, he seems like a nice enough guy, and he’s just about the only player or manager who still wears a mustache. He did not, however, play board games with you and take you fishing when you were small. That was your grandpa; I’m getting the feeling that people confuse the two.

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As it turned out, the White Sox’ final series of the season, a three-game set with Detroit, actually ended up meaning something. With the Twins two games back of Detroit on Friday, the Sox ripped off wins on Friday and Saturday, and the Twins won on Friday and Saturday against Kansas City, setting up a tie for first place in the AL Central heading into the last day of the season Sunday. Both the Tigers and Twins won, so Detroit and Minnesota will have a one-game playoff in the Metrodome tomorrow in order to determine the winner of the AL Central and which team will be heading to the postseason. (My money’s on the Twins in that stadium.)

But we’re not here to talk about baseball. We’re here to talk about off-field issues. Awesome! You see, the Tigers’ multi-million dollar first baseman, Miguel Cabrera, decided that instead of heading home on Friday night after the loss to rest up for what was quite possibly the most important game of the season, he would instead party balls with some members of the White Sox until the wee hours of the morning. (Good strategy by the Sox!) Fair enough. This is baseball; he wasn’t running a marathon the next day, and Saturday’s game was in the evening.

But according to the Detroit News, Cabrera’s wife wasn’t a fan of his late-night shenanigans, and called the cops on him at 6:05 a.m. on Saturday morning after they’d been arguing and apparently scratched each other up a bit. Cabrera blew a .26 — a .26! — and was taken into the station for a bit, before he was released. No one is pressing any charges.

Back to baseball now. Cabrera went 0-for-4 on Saturday night, striking out once and leaving six runners on base. He was 0-for-11 on the weekend.

If I’m the Twins, I’m wondering if Cabrera wants to hit the town with us tonight. Drinks on Gardenhire!

At least one hawk-eyed fan noticed during Tuesday night’s Twins-Tigers game that Joe Mauer, from his vantage point at second base, appeared to steal signs from the Tigers’ battery. Mauer then delivered a few simple signals to the batter at the time, Jason Kubel, who eventually made good on a sacrifice fly.

I would think that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune would have Mauer’s back on this 100 percent, but that isn’t quite the case:

The big question: if he was, indeed, stealing signs, do you consider that cheating or simply gamesmanship? Our take is that it falls somewhere in a grey area, but shades more toward gamesmanship.

As defined by Major League Baseball, which defines what is and is not cheating, this is not cheating. It’s illegal to steal signs by means of electronic equipment, as Mark Buehrle accused the Rangers of doing a few years ago. By extension, MLB’s position on the matter implicitly condones sign-stealing on the field.

The more important angle of this story, then, is that Mauer has demonstrated yet another dimension to his game. He’s unquestionably the best hitter in the American League this year, as he’s leading the league in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. His defensive ability is in, perhaps, the 60th percentile of catchers, but he manages his pitching staff very well. And now we learn that he can assume the role of crafty veteran and pounce on a unique opportunity to help his team when he recognizes it. In fact, in the third inning of today’s game, he hit a single and left the batter’s box carrying a bottle of olive oil, a cup of pine nuts  and a generous supply of fresh basil leaves. Later in the inning he came around to score and presented the bat boy with a delicious, if minimalist, pesto sauce. Anyone who does not vote this guy as MVP this year has no taste in fine cuisine.